(Newser)
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A veteran paraglider taking his teen daughter on a tandem flight fell to his death, but she managed to survive the crash landing that followed. Other paragliders say that 60-year-old Ron Faoro, a veterinarian in Santa Barbara, apparently forgot to strap his legs into the harness before setting off for the skies above Rattlesnake Canyon, reports the Santa Barbara Independent. After he fell, his inexperienced 16-year-old daughter came down in trees and suffered only minor injuries.

"She started falling out of control for a brief amount of time," a hiker who saw her come down tells KEYT-TV. "Fortunately, a gust of wind went ahead and righted her parachute." A rescue helicopter airlifted her out soon after, and authorities recovered her father's body hours later. Another hiker marvels at the girl's survival. "I kind of braced for what might be a really bad crash," he tells the TV station. "It was one of the nicest, softest landings I've ever seen."